(Photo-Degradation, Chain Scission in Biological Polymers):
Polymers are used in a wide range of applications from composite structures, automobile tires and adhesives to athletic shoes and fibers and are well known. One particularly important application subsequent to all domains of manufacturing is the field of reclaiming and recycling from already manufactured parts that have reached their end of life. Adhesives have proliferated many assembling processes to bond dissimilar parts. The properties of the bonding adhesive can be tailored to the part. Commercially available materials are formulated to meet various requirements, and in addition to the monomer(s) may contain particulate fillers such as metal, oxides, or dielectric powders, as well as various additives to control thermal conductivity, viscosity and other properties. However, once the functional life of a given product is over it becomes desirable to be able to reclaim valuable parts of the product (such precious metals) and recycle subassembly from the products (such as plastics) that can be reground for re-melting and re-use in making new products. The economics of recycling are not trivial. The more time, energy, and effort are involved to enable recycling, the less economically viable it becomes to harvest from old products to make new ones. The easier the methods that can be used to disassemble to reclaim and recycle, the better it is from a manufacturing stand point. Also, minimizing contamination of recycled products and recovering raw materials with the least contamination, the better it is from an economic stand point. For these reasons, methods that enable the disassembly of bonded parts (in pristine forms) would be highly desirable. A set of related technologies encompassing process, apparatus and methods are provided herein to take an existing polymer network that is highly reacted with good properties through an efficient degradation process to depolymerize it for ease of removal and de-bonding of joint parts while maximizing yield.